Screen capture

Screen capture

• agentpastone

  You can capture an active form while the program is running. Press Alt-PrintScreen to save active form to the clipboard. Then start an application such as WORD and paste the image into the doc.

  
  
  

• Jon Erlend Mathisen

  rkimble wrote:

  Ken, Modify the line: graph.CopyFromScreen(bounds.X, bounds.Y, 0, 0, bounds.Size,CopyPixelOperation.SourceCopy) This is where the screen source is being specified. Bounds.X and Bounds.Y should be replaced with the upper left coordinates of the area of the screen you want to capture and Bounds.Size should be replaced with the size of the area. That should be all there is to it! -EDIT- Oh, right, not quite all - when you created the target bitmap, its size should also have been set to the size of the area you actually want to capture.

  Dear rkimble

  Thank you for you quick response

  I have another Question I can use mouse down event to get use selected area in my form but

  How can I let user to select a area in desktop or other form and How can i get the selected area position or size

  
  
  

• DaveS_

  There are probably a number of ways to go about this. Since you appear to need a user controllable screen capture device, here's an example program that does just that. It creates a full screen, semi-transparent form, that allows the user to select an area of the screen and capture it to disk.

  To try it, just create a new project with a blank form and drop this code over the existing Form1 class declaration:

  Code Snippet

  Public Class Form1

  'Create a context menu for controlling the application

  Private mCtxMnu As New ContextMenu

  'Create a panel to serve as the selection area

  Private mSelPanel As New Panel

  'Create a string to hold the screen shot storage location

  Private mDirPath As String

  'Create an integer to store the opacity of the application

  Private mOpacity As Integer = 0.35

  'Program initialization

  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

  'Configure the form as a full screen, semi-transparent,

  'top most, borderless form

  Me.BackColor = Color.White

  Me.FormBorderStyle = Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None

  Me.ShowInTaskbar = False

  Me.TopMost = True

  Me.Size = Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Size

  Me.Location = New Point(0, 0)

  Me.Opacity = Me.mOpacity

  Me.ContextMenu = Me.mCtxMnu

  'Configure the context menu with a capture, select all, and close menu item

  Me.ContextMenu.MenuItems.Add("Capture", AddressOf CaptureEventHandler)

  Me.ContextMenu.MenuItems.Add("Select All", AddressOf SelectAllEventHandler)

  Me.ContextMenu.MenuItems.Add("-")

  Me.ContextMenu.MenuItems.Add("Close", AddressOf CloseEventHandler)

  'Set the selection area color

  Me.mSelPanel.BackColor = Color.DeepSkyBlue

  'Ensure a path exists to save the screen shots to

  Me.mDirPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyPictures), "Screen Shot Tests")

  If Not System.IO.Directory.Exists(Me.mDirPath) Then

  System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(Me.mDirPath)

  End If

  End Sub

  Private Sub CaptureEventHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

  'Ensure the selection panel is being displayed

  If Me.Controls.Contains(Me.mSelPanel) Then

  'Create a bitmap and graphics object for capturing the selection area

  Dim bmp As New Bitmap(Me.mSelPanel.Size.Width, Me.mSelPanel.Size.Height)

  Dim gfx As Graphics = System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage(bmp)

  'Make sure this application will not be visible

  Me.Opacity = 0

  'Copy the selection area to the screen, then clean up the graphics object

  gfx.CopyFromScreen(Me.mSelPanel.Location, New Point(0, 0), Me.mSelPanel.Size, CopyPixelOperation.MergeCopy)

  gfx.Dispose()

  'Reset the transparency of this application

  Me.Opacity = Me.mOpacity

  'Save the image

  Dim fn As String

  fn = System.IO.Path.Combine(Me.mDirPath, String.Concat(Now.ToString("ddMMyyyyhhmmss"), ".jpg"))

  bmp.Save(fn)

  bmp.Dispose()

  'Remove the selection panel

  Me.Controls.Remove(Me.mSelPanel)

  End If

  End Sub

  Private Sub CloseEventHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

  'Close the application

  Me.Close()

  End Sub

  Private Sub SelectAllEventHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

  'Set the selection panel to the full screen size

  Me.mSelPanel.Size = Me.Size

  Me.mSelPanel.Location = New Point(0, 0)

  If Not Me.Controls.Contains(Me.mSelPanel) Then

  Me.Controls.Add(Me.mSelPanel)

  End If

  End Sub

  Private Sub Form1_MouseDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles Me.MouseDown

  'Show the selection panel if its not already shown

  If Me.Controls.Contains(Me.mSelPanel) Then

  Me.Controls.Remove(Me.mSelPanel)

  End If

  'Reset the seleciton panel size and position

  If e.Button = Windows.Forms.MouseButtons.Left Then

  Me.mSelPanel.Size = New Size(1, 1)

  Me.mSelPanel.Location = e.Location

  Me.Controls.Add(Me.mSelPanel)

  End If

  End Sub

  Private Sub Form1_MouseMove(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles Me.MouseMove

  'If the selection is being made in a positive direction, resize

  'the panel to fit the selection

  If e.Button = Windows.Forms.MouseButtons.Left Then

  If e.X > Me.mSelPanel.Location.X Then

  If e.Y > Me.mSelPanel.Location.Y Then

  Me.mSelPanel.Width = e.X - Me.mSelPanel.Location.X

  Me.mSelPanel.Height = e.Y - Me.mSelPanel.Location.Y

  End If

  End If

  End If

  End Sub

  End Class

  This should give you the basic peices necessary. Good luck!

  
  
  

• Jamesford42

  Ken,

  Modify the line: graph.CopyFromScreen(bounds.X, bounds.Y, 0, 0, bounds.Size,CopyPixelOperation.SourceCopy)

  This is where the screen source is being specified. Bounds.X and Bounds.Y should be replaced with the upper left coordinates of the area of the screen you want to capture and Bounds.Size should be replaced with the size of the area.

  That should be all there is to it!

  -EDIT-

  Oh, right, not quite all - when you created the target bitmap, its size should also have been set to the size of the area you actually want to capture.

  
  
  

• Microart

  Max,

  Thanks for the code it works a treat.

  Dave

  
  
  

• garnett

  Hi,

  Here is the sample how to do that:

  Dim bounds As Rectangle
  Dim screenshot As Bitmap
  Dim graph As Graphics
  bounds = Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds
  screenshot = New Bitmap(bounds.Width, bounds.Height, Imaging.PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb)
  graph = Graphics.FromImage(screenshot)
  graph.CopyFromScreen(bounds.X, bounds.Y, 0, 0, bounds.Size,CopyPixelOperation.SourceCopy)
  screenshot.Save("c:\temp\image.bmp")

  Max

  
  
  

• Noah Campbell

  Hi Maksim Libenson

  I have trted your code and it can capture whole screen no problem.

  But if i only want to capture some area in my desktop So , How can't I achieve this ideal

  can you teach me or let me know what kind of document I should reference.

  Thank you.

  
  
  

• Jorgen Aker

  Use this code :
  SendKeys.Send("{PRTSC}") 'PrintScreen Key
  PictureBox1.Image = My.Computer.Clipboard.GetImage 'Or System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.GetImage()
  PictureBox1.Image.Save(FilePath)
  
  
  
• Screen capture